Chase Away the Demons
by Demon-Kitty-Chan
Summary: The way I think it should have ended. R&R please! T for violence. One shot.


**This is my first 'Sweeney Todd' fanfic. I recently watched the movie for the nth time and the ending is so sad! (I actually cried ._. ) So here's the ending the way I think it should have been. Let me know if there's typo's or if something doesn't add up. Critiques please! Flames will be used to burn Mrs. Lovett! **

. . .

Sweeney looked at the woman standing in front of him. She was dirty, stank of smells from the streets, and had an equally scared and crazed look upon her face. Yet there was some sort of captivating aura around her.

Suddenly, as if being brought out of a haze, she gazed at him wondrously, "I know you." Her eyes seemed to peek out from under the dirty strip of blond hair.

Anger and fright told the barber to take his precious razor and slit her throat in one swift motion. It would be quick and surely a better end for her then dying on the street of some filthy disease. Something, however, held him back.

Sweeney frowned; just as he was about to open his mouth a call came from down the stairs. "Mr. Todd?" It was the judge sounding both urgent and very angry.

With a quick look around the room, he spotted the large trunk. Without asking or waiting for the beggar to say a word, the handsome man took her by her arm (although not too roughly) and led her over to the trunk. "Be quiet." He hissed before opening the trunk to a surprise. Inside, a young man was hiding- a scared look in his eyes.

"Bloody hell." The barber cussed before grabbing the lad with his free hand, "Who are you?" Why were there so many people in his shop? Did no one respect the privacy of a vengeful man?

"Please sir-" The lad began, his voice sounding more feminine then that of a young man.

"Mr. Todd!" The judge was at the door witnessing the puzzling scene. He stormed into the room, rage in his eyes. He recognized the young person hiding in the trunk at once. "Is that Joanna you have in that trunk? I demand that you give her back this instant!" He strode towards them and promptly snatched the cap off of the young woman's head, her blond hair tumbled down her back. With scared eyes she looked at her captor of fifteen years and the man who wished to make her his bride by any means.

"You!" Cried the beggar woman, "Liar! Cheat! Devil!" She began to mumble things that no one could decipher while backing away, fear in her large blue eyes. Large blue eyes that Sweeney finally recognized.

"Lucy?" He dared to speak the name aloud. The sound of it seemed strange upon his tongue for he had only thought of his beautiful wife and it was odd for him to match this beggar woman's face to her youthful one.

The judge froze, half way making a grab for a frightened Joanna. "Lucy? That's impossible! She poisoned herself after an unfortunate- incident." He sniffed with disdain but was looking uncertainly at the woman.

"Yes?" The woman asked, her voice held notes of insanity that made her easy to dismiss. She looked at Sweeney for a moment, a small spark of knowledge on her dirty face.

Judge Turpin grabbed Joanna, "I leave the beggar with you Todd, this one is coming with me. I shall see you get your do's in court and are hanged!" His words came out self-righteously and he glanced at Lucy not believing that this was the woman whom he had coveted and forced himself on so many years ago.

Sweeney looked at Lucy before turning on the judge who had finally yanked a frightened, confused Joanna out of the trunk. "The name sir," he said quietly reaching into his coat, "is Benjamin Barker!" The last two words he screamed before flicking out one of his razors. The cruel judge hardly had enough time to understand before the fine blade slit his throat in one expert flick. The last thing in his eyes was horror at watching the blade stab at him again and again.

Lucy was backing up shrieking, "Devil! Devil!" The word came out sounding excited yet scared. She was pointing but it was unclear whether it was at the seemingly possessed barber who was finally getting his revenge or at the greedy lawman who had already passed on to be judged in his next life.

Joanna had covered her face with her hands as soon as her father had begun to kill Judge Turpin. She felt tears stream down her face and was ashamed at the fact that they were not tears of sadness but of relief. The evil man that had kept her locked up for so many years, the one that had throw out and punished so many young men for finding interest in her, was finally dead. "Stop," she managed to choke out. It was hardly above a whisper but the barber must have hear for he ceased.

It was quite a frightening sight to behold when everything stopped- time seemed to stand still as the family regarded one another. The former Benjamin Barker stood by the trunk; his sleeves were covered in Turpin's blood and his eyes darted from his crying daughter to his hysterical wife. Lucy still had the half-wild look on her face but it seemed that there was a certain amount of calm on her once beautiful features. Joanna was wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and was wearily looking at the body of her guard. No one moved or said a word.

"Mr. Todd?" The voice of Mrs. Lovett drifted up the stairs, "Is everything alright?" Her shoes made a clamping noise as she started up the steps. Lucy opened her mouth to begin to warn them of the 'devil's mistress' but Sweeney looked at her and shook her head. Surprisingly, she nodded knowingly and kept quite. Joanna was frozen- her heart was racing and it felt like too much was happening.

Finally finding his voice, Sweeney cleared his throat as he cleaned off his razor upon his ruined shirt. "Everything is fine now. Why don't we go down to the basement as see about Toby?"

The approaching steps stopped. "Yes, I suppose we should go to the poor lad. Down there all by himself..."

"Good. I shall be right down." The barber pulled up his sleeves and looked at his daughter for the first time in fifteen years. Her hair was the same beautiful yellow as her mother's had once been and her eyes also mirrored Lucy's. The look of determination, although very frightened, was something he recognized to be that of his own. For an awkward moment he reached towards her but she moved back from the blood covered figure. Understanding, the father retracted his hand. "My Joanna..." he seemed to whisper in a haze.

Lucy watched this, a smile upon her face. Though she did not understand why this man was saying that Joanna was his when it was her daughter, she knew that there was truth and kindness behind it.

"I must go," The barbed closed his razor, put on a jacket, and started for the door. No one paid mind to the fallen judge. With a glance back at his family, Sweeney started down the steps. Quickly, he went to the basement to find Mrs. Lovett calling for Toby.

"I can't find the boy anywhere," she put her hands on her hips. "I'm afraid he might have gone." She then caught the strange look on his face, "What is it? Are you okay? We can always find another boy." Behind her, the door to the furnace was open and pies were ready to be taken out. The basement stunk from the cooked human bodies and sewer that ran through it.

Sweeney went over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, "Ah, Mrs. Lovett." His voice was controlled and the woman was too caught up in the moment to notice the hidden edge of anger.

"Yes?" She looked up at him eagerly from under dark lashes.

"This is a start of a new life, just us together!" He swung her around and delight appeared on her pale face as she began to dance with him.

"Oh yes, Mr. T! Everything I have done is for us! For this moment!" She closed her eyes, captivated in the moment with his arms around her. This is how it should always be.

"Of course my wife will have to be privy to everything."

"Yes Mr. T-" Her eyes flew open, "but how-?" Panic took over her once she saw the look in his eyes. The charade was over. Before she could scramble away, Sweeney flung her into the open oven. The shelves fell, incinerating the human pies. Hastily, the flames latched into the still alive woman and began to devour her. Her screams were blood curling but the angry barber had no mercy. Nonchalantly, he went over and closed the door- only looking through the small window to watch her body be eaten by the hungry fire.

What had to be done was done. With a careless look around for the boy, Sweeney made his way up the steps. The boy was smart and would find his way out through the sewers eventually.

As he stepped into the cool England night, a feeling of liberation overcame the man. Finally he had done away with the evil that held his daughter captive and the lying woman that kept his Lucy from him. Beginning to climb the steps to his shop, plans of what to come formed in his mind. At last he would be-

"Mr. Todd!" The excited cry came from Antony. Was everyone in need of him this night? The young sailor ran up to him. "I have found a carriage to take Joanna and I away. We must leave soon. Is she up there? Is she okay?" He peered around the man and up the stairs.

"She is." The short answer came out bluntly. Sweeney felt the pressure of having to decide to keep his daughter or let her go well up inside him. If she went then he would surely never see her again but if she stayed what sort of life would there be? He mother had gone insane, probably an effect of the poison which Mrs. Lovett claimed she had taken, and her father was a murderer. "Take her and leave quickly." It was his final decision. He had missed her first fifteen years, years that he had spent rotting with criminals and dreaming of coming home to a family, but now he knew that he must let her go if there was going to be a remote chance for her to heal.

Antony didn't catch onto this somber mood for it was how he had always known the strange man to be. "Thank you Mr. Todd! I am forever in your debt!" He shook the barbers hand and hurried up the steps. Too late, Sweeney remembered the dead judge and turned with urgency to call for the young man to stop. When he looked, however, Joanna was already standing outside- the door closed behind her. For a moment she looked down at him and nodded, a thank you and acknowledgement of him. The boys cap had been put back on her head and she showed no signs of crying. Benjamin smiled slightly as he knew that his daughter would no longer have to endure being a prisoner. As Antony reached her, they embraced and he kissed her upon her forehead while whispering promises of a new life. Her nightmare was at last dead, his corpse laying on the floor in the Demon Barber of Fleet Street's shop.


End file.
